Avenging Alex (4 page)

“Not that I could tell.”

“He didn't get into the house?”

“He didn't get the chance. I was out earlier and when I came back in I forgot to lock the dead bolt.”

Donovan, who'd been glancing around the room at nothing in particular, chimed in. The resonance in his voice and cadence of his words informed of his breeding from the Lone Star State. “You were out? Where did you go?”

Alex cut John a side glance and then addressed the man. “I went to the pharmacy on West Foothills to pick up my mother's albuterol.”

Jamilah, who'd pulled out a broom and dustpan and made her way back in from the kitchen, nodded her confirmation.

“Were you alone?” Donovan pressed. “You didn't notice this van while you were out, or following you from the pharmacy when you left?”

“No,” Alex snapped.

“Sorry,” Donovan apologized. “Just tryin' to get the details.”

Alex combed her fingers through her tousled tresses and wrapped her arms around herself. “I . . . I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to do your job. I had a lot of things on my mind when I left and I wasn't really paying attention.”

John interrupted. “Donovan, why don't you get those prints expedited through the system. The sooner we know something the easier everyone can breathe. I'll hang back here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. There's a patrol car out looking for any signs of the van. There's not a whole lot else we can do at the moment.”

“Okay. I'll go down to the office and see if anything turns up. I'll keep you posted.”

Jamilah leaned out the door as John's partner and the police departed. She noted the people who were out jogging or walking dogs gathering to look and speculate.

A particularly curious neighbor craned her neck from her front step and yelled across the street, “Is there anything wrong, Janette?”

“Nothing for you to worry about, Ernie Mae,” Jamilah responded with a generic smile and wave. “Everything's fine.” She closed the door and grimaced. “Inspector, do you think there's anything to this man coming to the house?”

“Can't say just yet,” John replied. “We'll see what comes of the fingerprints. This could all be random, somebody with the wrong address.”

“What if I did see a man outside the other night? What if this was the man?” Alex's voice rose barely above a whisper.

“Alex.” John caught himself and glanced over his shoulder. “Adriane, I don't want to scare you any more than you already are, but if it was one of Xavier's men I don't think he would've stopped with a knock on the door. And I don't think anyone who works for him would've been so careless as to leave fingerprints behind that could be identified.”

“I thought you said none of Xavier Rivera's people knew where we are,” Jamilah interjected.

“I am positive that you're safe,” John replied.

Alex looked into John's eyes. “For all our sakes I hope you're right.”

Jamilah excused herself to go check on the baby. Alex slowly sank onto the sofa. John sat beside her. “I was a cop for the LAPD for four years. I've been doing this job for six, and I haven't lost anyone I was assigned to protect. I don't intend for you to be the first.”

Alex raised her head and smiled. “That's comforting.” She swallowed back a cluster of emotions surging through her as she looked into his soulful eyes. “Have you always wanted to do this kind of work?”

“Not always. When I was growin' up I didn't really think I had any real future outside Compton. I saw a lot of friends either get locked up, or killed, and I was going down that same path until this cop who used to hang in my neighborhood knocked some sense into me.”

Alex was pleasantly distracted by John's conversational tone. “You were a troublemaker?”

“I got popped for breaking into these houses when I was thirteen.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“It was pretty stupid, but that's what the kids I hung out with did back then,” John mused.

Alex laughed. “So you were a little hustler, huh?”

“Headed straight to juvie.”

“And this cop steered you in the right direction?”

“Yeah. Hank Mitchell was the first man I'd met who had such an impact on my life. He kept me out of the gangs.” John became animated as he continued. “Hank was like this big, muscular dude who used to be a Marine and he didn't take crap from anybody. He used to tell me that he was gonna bust my ass if I didn't get my shit together, but he was cool as hell. He started shooting ball with me and my older brother on Saturdays when he wasn't on duty.”

“What happened to him?”

John smiled. “He ended up marrying my mom when I was fourteen. Hank is the reason I wanted to be a cop. He tried to talk me into pursuing a law degree instead. I got into a community college for a couple of years and then managed to get into USC. After I graduated I met . . .”

“You met Lorraine?”

“Yeah, and I ended up being a cop anyway. I could tell Hank was proud of me regardless. I don't know why I'm telling you all this, but you wanted to know some stuff about me, so there it is.”

“Well, I'm glad he was there for you. Otherwise, you couldn't be here for me.”

“That's true.” John gently touched her chin, turned her to face him, and leaned into her. Their kiss was tentative. His lips were full, soft, warm. “I'm sorry,” John said. “I don't know why I did that.”

Alex pulled away. She moved to the window and stared blankly at the unmarked patrol car driving conspicuously up the street, and her neighbors going on with their days as if the happenings at her address barely registered concern.

“I can't do this, John. We can't . . .”

“Yeah . . . I know.” John stood and stepped up behind her.

Alex closed her eyes, feeling the heat of his hands on her shoulders. She entertained his touch for as long as she could before pulling away. “You have to go.”

“Yeah,” John agreed. “I should go check and see if Donovan came up with anything. I'll call you later.”

She watched him walk to his truck, resisting the urge to run out and call him back, cursing herself for her weakness. Before driving off he looked back up at her and smiled. There was a certain comfort in his eyes. She wanted to believe he would protect her at all cost, perhaps beyond reason. But would it be the marshal who came to her aid, or the man?

Jamilah scoured the produce section of the farmers' market, sniffing, plucking, and squeezing peaches, melons, and oranges, taking care to select the ripest and freshest of the lot. She shook her head, watching her greedy shopping companion trailing behind her, picking at a stem of unwashed seedless grapes, and popping them in her mouth.

“What?” The woman scoffed; her voice was husky from excessive smoking.

Jamilah chuckled. “You do know you have to pay for those, right?”

“Girl, please. They're here to be sampled. How am I supposed to know if they're sweet enough to buy if I don't try a few?”

“A few? You've eaten almost a whole bag's worth.”

“Humph!” Ernie Mae Hudson was a stout, fair-skinned woman with short hair that was more orange than the reddish tint she was going for. She was one of the few women Jamilah had befriended since being displaced. “Girl, don't look now, but I think that man over there is watching us.”

Jamilah turned. “Who?”

Ernie Mae slapped Jamilah's arm. “I said don't look.”

“Please, I couldn't care less about some man. But, you're welcome to him if you want him.”

Ernie Mae tossed the bare stem to the ground and brushed her hands together and adjusted her substantial bosom. “I think I'm more his type anyway. You're a little too old maid.”

Jamilah pulled her glasses from her face, letting them dangle from the chain around her neck. She caught her reflection in a mirror over the vegetable bin, pursed her lips, and smoothed down her loose hair.

“I told you to do somethin' with yourself,” Ernie Mae chided. “You could have put on lipstick or somethin'. Just 'cause we were goin' to the market don't mean we can't look nice. You don't know who might be lookin' at you.”

“I didn't come out here to meet anybody,” Jamilah protested. She didn't want to admit that her friend was right. Her bronzed complexion was wholesome enough, but she was in agreement that a little makeup wouldn't have hurt. She could have fixed up a bit even if it was just to go to the farmers' market. Since the death of her husband some thirteen years prior, she hadn't really taken much of an interest in another man. It wasn't as if she let herself go, she just didn't go out of her way to attract them. Still, as her daughter reminded her, she was as beautiful as ever despite a few more gray hairs and wrinkles that honored her age.

“Oooh, he's comin' over here,” Ernie Mae said excitedly.

“Excuse me,” the man said, nodding his head in a gentlemanly manner. “You look very familiar to me.”

Ernie Mae rolled her eyes, insulted that the man looked right past her to Jamilah. “You couldn't have come up with anything better than that,” she scoffed.

“My name is Ade Obafemi.”

Jamilah suppressed a smile and brushed her hand over her hair. “Janette Sullivan.”

“Very nice to meet you, Janette Sullivan.”

The robust man's coarse white hair complemented his dark features. There appeared to be wisdom and kindness in his expression, along with a mischievous twinkle that told of a well-spent youth.

“Obafemi,” Jamilah repeated.

“I am from Nigeria.”

Jamilah smiled. “Well, so am I.”

“I've been in the United States for a few years now from Kandula,” the man continued.

“I wasn't too far from there.” Jamilah smiled. “I lived in Abuja.”

“My son lives there,” the man noted.

“You're married?”

“Widower.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a widow myself.”

“Excuse me,” Ernie Mae snapped. “I hate to break up the dead spouse club, but there is another person standing here.”

“This is my friend Ernie Mae Hudson.”

The man nodded. “My apologies.”

The woman elbowed Jamilah's side. “We need to get goin', don't we, Janette?”

The man took Jamilah's hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Janette Sullivan. Perhaps we could meet for tea some afternoon. I don't live far from here.”

Ernie Mae shrieked. “You don't expect her to come to your house, do you?”

“No, not at all. I didn't mean to imply—”

“Don't mind her, Mr. Obafemi,” Jamilah injected.

His expression flushed with embarrassment. “Perhaps I could call on you soon.”

“There's a small park not far from here that I go to. Sometimes twice a week,” Jamilah offered. “I don't suppose there would be any harm should I see you there at some point.”

“I would like that very much.”

Unlike Alex, Jamilah wasn't as guarded as she perhaps should have been. She saw no harm in an innocent meeting. No threat of peril prowling in darkness or behind corners. No cause for misgiving. Seeing how the man's attention affected Ernie Mae Hudson was a silent victory to be sure, one that she would delight in sharing with Alex later.

 

 

Given her own anxieties Alex was less than amused at her mother's tale over dinner.

“You should have seen Ernie Mae's face.” Jamilah laughed. “Green is not that woman's color.”

“I can't believe you flirted with a stranger like that.”

“I did no such thing, Alexandra. I was just being cordial.”

“Mama, you didn't know anything about him.”

“I said hello to the man; I didn't invite him to bed.”

Silence fell between the two as they sat across from one another at the table. Alex picked at the meatloaf on her plate, realizing that there may have been no real cause for suspicion of some innocuous older man. “I'm sorry, Mama.”

Jamilah reached across the table and patted Alex's hand. “It's all right. I know we can't be too careful, but we can't close ourselves off completely either.”

“I know,” Alex conceded. “I need to stop looking for trouble. So, tell me more about this man you met.”

Jamilah smiled. “His name is Ade and he's from Kandula. When I told him I was from Nigeria as well he—”

“Wait. What! You told him where you were from?”

“Omolola, don't be so alarmed. He seemed to be a perfectly respectable gentleman. I doubt very much that he's some trained assassin.”

Alex sighed. “Oh, Mama, I just get so freaked out. I'm sorry. I need to calm down.”

“Why don't you call John?”

“Why?”

“So you can talk to him. See where things really stand between him and his wife.”

Alex scoffed. “No. I'm not going to do that. I don't beg and I don't grovel.”

“Then why don't you go out and find some nice young man to occupy your time. You're a beautiful woman. If John Chase is not the man for you then there's someone out there who is.”

 

 

A gunshot rang out and Alex's eyes sprung open. She bolted straight up in the bed, swallowing back a scream. “It was just a dream,” she heaved. “That's all it was.” She glanced toward the illuminated clock on the nightstand. “Five o'clock.” She groaned and rolled over, rearranging the pillows, hoping to snag a few more hours of sleep; it was not forthcoming.

She rolled out of bed, yawned, stretched, and went to check on her daughter. Relieved at the calm of the house, she readjusted the baby's blanket and made her way to the kitchen to make coffee. There was a quiet in the early morning that made her feel at ease. John informed her that nothing suspicious had come back from the man's fingerprints that were run through the system. He also told her the house the man was actually looking for was one street over and Paul Johnson had only just moved in. That allayed her fear all the more, knowing that her whereabouts had not been discovered. She sat oddly content at the table, sipping her coffee, listening to the birds chirping from a tree branch outside the window, and flipping through the
Monrovia Weekly.

“Good morning,” Jamilah sang as she came around the corner into the kitchen. “You're up early. I heard you stirrin' around last night. What time did you get to bed?”

“John called a little after eleven. I really didn't want to sleep until I heard from him.”

“What did he say?”

“They tracked down the guy who came to the house. The only thing that turned up was some unpaid parking tickets, and some sort of record of a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. Turns out the man he was looking for had just moved into a house one block over.”

“Well, that's good, but what did he say about the two of you?”

“Mama, stop. Nothing is going to happen between us.”

“I'm not crazy, Omolola. Something is already happening whether you want to own up to it or not.”

“Well, he's married and he has a family and that's the end of that.”

“I hear your head talkin', but I don't think your heart agrees.”

Before Alex could put forth any sort of rebuttal Cerena's cry interrupted, and she got up and went to look after her.

“Shhhh . . . it's all right, baby girl. Mommy's here. Oooh, you're getting so big.” She picked the girl up from the crib, cleaned her up, and changed her soiled diaper. The girl was instantly calmed by her mother's touch. “You're hungry aren't you? Yes, you are.”

Alex went to the kitchen to find that Jamilah had already prepared the bottle. She took the bottle and went back to sit in the living room. Cradled in her mother's arms Cerena hungrily drank the formula while gazing up at her with her big hazel eyes. Alex caressed Cerena's silken curls and was struck by her intent stare, dismissing the notion that Tirrell was looking back at her. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and blinked them away. Since discovering she was pregnant, and especially after Cerena's birth, she'd experienced so many foreign and unexpected emotions that had taken some getting used to because she never considered herself particularly maternal. The edge she had survived on for so many years had been dissolved by a tidal wave of angst and hormones. Her own preservation was no longer paramount, which added to her anxiety. The need to control her environment had taken on a new dimension. The welfare of her child needed to be put above all else. Jamilah was an example of the sacrifice motherhood required of her, having given up her friends and the familiarity of her home in New York to follow her daughter into exile.

“Okay, let me have my granddaughter. I've made you some breakfast.”

“Mama, I'm not hungry.”

“Don't be foolish, Omolola. You can see to your baby, but I can't see about mine? Come on now. Give me Cerena and you go in there and eat.”

Alex passed the baby to her mother, went to the kitchen, and sat down to a plate of bacon and blueberry pancakes. She was hungrier than she realized. Before she knew it her plate was empty. The sound of Jamilah's singing from the living room brought a smile to her face as she cleared the table. Alex peered inside to see Jamilah rocking Cerena and making the funny faces she used to make when she'd sung the same song to her so many years before.

“‘L'abe igi orombo . . . N'ibe l'agbe nsere wa . . . Inu wa dun, ara wa ya . . . L'abe igi orombo . . . Orombo, orombo . . . Orombo, orombo.'
Do you remember, Omolola?”

“‘Under the Orange Tree,'” Alex recalled. “How could I forget? You sang it to me practically every night before I would fall asleep.”

“Cerena loves it too.”

Alex walked over and hugged them. “She loves her
nnenne,
and so do I. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have you here.”

“Look, I want to show you something.” Jamilah put Cerena on the floor and stepped back a few feet from her. “Come here, beautiful girl. Come to
Nnenne.
”

Cerena pushed up on her knees, bouncing and bobbing back and forth. Her saliva-lined lips babbled disconnected vowels and consonants as her grandmother clapped and encouraged her.

“That's right. Come to
Nnenne.
”

Alex was astounded when Cerena began to crawl toward them. “Oh, my God, when did this happen?”

“She's been trying for days.”

Alex reached down and lifted the girl to her feet. Cerena gripped her index fingers with her tiny hands and launched into a few timid steps. Tears brimmed in Alex's eyes. She swept Cerena up in her arms and kissed her.

Jamilah swayed side to side. “Sing with me, Omolola.”

“No. I can't sing.”

“Come now, of course you can.”

“I don't have your voice.”

“You have
a
voice; that's all that matters to this one.”

Alex reluctantly twirled around singing (off key), as Jamilah clapped, laughed, and joined in, correcting her on the words she mispronounced.

That moment was as close to normal as most anything else she could have done.